Day 153 – Lower Halstow to Sheerness-on-Sea: 14.1m: 5.4h

A reasonably objective view of the Beaumont is perhaps that, for the price, it promises more than it delivers. Most of the rooms are quite small, some don’t have en suite loos and, as emerged yesterday evening, the power and temperature controls of the showers are problematic. On the plus side, the beds are comfortable, and breakfast is available from (and is taken shortly after) 6:30. A cab picks us up at 7:30 and, having ascertained that we’ll be walking to Sheerness today, the driver informs – or in some cases reminds – us of the terrible pile up that occurred on the Isle of Sheppey road bridge back in 2013 when more than 130 vehicles were involved in a series of crashes in thick fog. 60 people were injured, but remarkably there were no fatalities.

The cab drops us in a housing estate between The Three Tuns and Lower Halstow Dock, and we set off eastwards just after 7:45. Once out of Lower Halstow, in the interests of purity we walk along a narrow road just to the south of some marshland and a network of creeks leading off the Medway, rather than follow the Saxon Shore Way which runs a bit further south from the road through a series of fields. However, we encounter what must be the local rush hour. There’s a lot of traffic on the road and, after half a mile or so, purity for once has to give way to prudence. We move into the fields and onto the Saxon Shore Way. About 40 minutes later, the peace and calm of the fields comes to an end as we emerge onto a gravel path running alongside what appears to be a run-down caravan park. However, from the noise that greets our arrival, it seems also to be the home of a number of excitable and probably rather large dogs. Perhaps our pace increases slightly as we walk along the path and, when we reach the end, it seems rather incongruous to be at a place with the delightful name of Raspberry Hill. Here we turn onto a path through and around marshland. Initially it takes us north towards Chetney Marshes, then north east by the south side of those marshes, and finally back south east on the bank of Horse Reach towards the two Sheppey crossings. We walk under the main road bridge to the older – and lower – Kingsferry Bridge which carries the branch railway line between Sittingbourne and Sheerness. After a couple of wrong turnings, we find our way up to the side of the bridge which has a footpath alongside the railway line. A further piece of local knowledge vouchsafed by our cab driver this morning was that the Kingsferry Bridge occasionally has to open to allow boats through, and that if you arrive when this is about to happen, the waiting time can be anything up to an hour. We can’t see any river traffic approaching the bridge but, as we start to cross, two men emerge from a cabin on the far side. They turn out to be Network Rail employees and so, thankfully, we haven’t hit opening time.

We’ve been walking for almost 3 hours and, once we’re on the Isle of Sheppey and on the other bank of Horse Reach, it’s about 6 miles to Sheerness. Our route along the eastern shore of the island looks pretty straightforward and initially takes us out to the intriguingly named Ladies Hole Point and then back towards Queensborough. However, as we approach the town, it looks as though we might have to take quite a significant inland diversion from the coastal path to get around a large construction site. We decide to take our chances and walk along the shoreline but, after about 600 yards, arrive at a high and seemingly extensive fence surrounding the site. The usual twosome immediately suggest retracing our steps, but two sections of the fence are joined by nothing more than a couple of lengths of knotted twine which are easily removed and re-knotted when we’ve all squeezed through the resulting forced gap. So far, so good, but now that we’re inside the site, how will we get out at the other side? Ben thinks that he’s found the answer when he sees a sizeable gap at the bottom of another stretch of fence and, although we have no problem in crawling under it and although downtown Queensborough is immediately in front of us when we get to the other side, we’re prevented from walking into the town by a stream with no immediately apparent crossing point. Instead, we have to walk away from the town along a path, which broadens out into a temporary road, which leads to a large pair of entrance gates to the site, which…..are secured by a large chain and combination lock. Bit of a problem, particularly as we’ve so far seen nobody anywhere on the site. However, no more than a few seconds after we reach the gates, a large digger arrives at the other side. The driver doesn’t seem to mind us being there, unlocks the chain, and opens the gates. With appropriately profuse thanks, we emerge onto the road outside while the driver expertly manoeuvres the digger through the gates and into the site.

It's not long before we get through Queensborough and, after walking for less than a mile along another tributary of the Medway called the Swale, we turn to follow a raised path between the perimeter fence of a large new vehicle storage park on one side and the main road and rail line to Sheerness on the other. This eventually brings us to Sheerness High Street and the end of today’s walk near the entrance to Sheerness Dock. It’s just before ten past one and our train doesn’t leave for 40 minutes. Just enough time to locate a pub close to the station, the Belle and Lion, and ease our way through a pint. The train leaves on time and arrives in Sittingbourne at the same time as a connecting train to St Pancras. Mike decides not to rush over the bridge to catch it and, because of the time of the service which he’s due to take from King’s Cross to Newark, to wait for the next St Pancras train rather than accompany John, Ben and Gary to Victoria. All travel arrangements work well, to include John getting from Victoria to Paddington in 20 minutes and catching a train to Kingham with the luxury of 7 minutes to spare. 

Day 152 – Rochester to Lower Halstow: 16.8m: 6.1h

Gary’s suspicions prior to the last walk that he might be suffering from COVID proved to be well founded. However, he has recovered (with no readily apparent after-effects) in good time to join Ben and John at Victoria today for the journey back to Rochester where Mike is waiting in the sunshine having once again taken the line from St Pancras.

We set off just before 10:30, and the walk out of the town takes slightly longer than expected. There’s quite a bit of housing development in progress alongside the Medway, so our route is a zig-zag between the river and the streets of Rochester and Chatham. After an hour we’ve reached Chatham Dockyard. The distance of a direct walk there along the river bank would have been around 2 miles. The logger is showing 2.9 miles. Clearly, we’re going to be walking a little bit further today than John’s initial estimate of 14.25 miles!

From the Dockyard, we continue north onto St Mary’s Island. The path around the island sticks more closely to the Medway, with views back over to the Hoo Peninsula (and The Ship at Lower Upnor), and concludes with a floating boardwalk over a river basin. It’s a pretty stable construction, so perhaps it’s merely the thought of it being “floating” which prompts a comment from someone about feeling seasick. Once off the island, we again have to spend some time walking alongside a road – in this case a dual carriageway to the north of Gillingham – but, with some more zig-zagging, we eventually get back to the Medway near Gillingham Marshes on the Saxon Shore Way. We pass Cinque Port Marshes and come to a Riverside Country Park where we pause for one of our periodic discussions of the walk’s rules (such as they are) regarding connected offshore areas. This is because we have arrived at a very narrow peninsula with the wonderful name of Horrid Hill. It’s almost a kilometre in length and stretches out into the marshes. Access is not affected by the tide which suggests that it should be part of the walk. However, it seems to comprise a single path out and back rather than an area to walk around. We therefore decide that it should not be treated in the same way as, for example, Spurn Point, but rather as the equivalent of a jetty or pier. To be fair, we’re probably just reluctant to make yet another diversion, but it’s good to have something which approaches a more objective justification for our decision. So we continue eastward, past Lower Rainham, to the next peninsula at Motney Hill, which we are able to walk around – or almost around, access to its northern end being blocked by a sewage works. Beyond Motney Hill, we go past Horsham Lake and follow the roads and lanes around Upchurch which bring us back to the Medway, and an inlet leading to our destination for the day, Lower Halstow Dock. From there, it’s a short walk to The Three Tuns which we reach shortly after 4:30.

John had originally booked a cab for 5 o’clock to take us from The Three Tuns to the Beaumont, the B&B in Sittingbourne where we are staying tonight. However, as a result of our various diversions and stops during the day, we decided a couple of hours ago that it would be prudent to put back the pick-up time to 5:30, so we now have plenty of time for a relaxed couple of pints in a very welcoming and comfortable pub. Our cab arrives at the rearranged time and delivers us to the Beaumont where, despite one or two problems with shower water pressure and temperature, baths/showers are taken before we reconvene for supper. We’ve booked a table at The Billet, which is about 400 yards along the road – the road being the A2. It’s a large pub with a large, if basic, menu including a number of offers such as two meals from one particular section for £11. We settle down with a bottle of white (or a pint of something or other for Mike) to consider our options. However, when Ben goes to the bar to place our order, he’s told that fish – the customary choice for two of our number – is off tonight. We therefore decide to finish our drinks and repair to the neighbouring Marino Fish Bar which had been recommended earlier by our host at the Beaumont and is a dine-in as well as take-away establishment. We seem to be the only customers, and the food is ok but probably doesn’t merit the Beaumont’s recommendation. It certainly doesn’t qualify as cheap which, fortunately, isn’t a criticism which can be levelled at the wine. We ease our way through another two bottles, and John and Mike call in at The Billet afterwards for a couple of stickies. The two lightweights return direct to the Beaumont.        

Day 151 – Grain to Rochester: 18.1m: 6.5h

Our 7 am breakfast is perhaps a little disappointing, but we can get a good cab ride out to Grain and are able to set off from the pub in good order, in time to see a fox enjoying the early morning before the regulars have even reached the Hogarth. We must go to the eastern end of the Isle of Grain but that is reached swiftly: we walk down the sea wall for a mile or so, looking nervously out to see the S.S. Richard Montgomery’s masts peeping above the water outside Sheerness. We then turn inland to get past one of the power stations that, together with big gas and oil storage tanks, seem to be an Isle of Grain speciality, and begin the slow walk back westwards along the southern edge of the Hoo peninsula towards Rochester again, hugging the meandering shore of the Medway and occasionally crossing the railway line and road which connect Grain to the outside world. The wind of yesterday has abated, so it is warm and pleasant (though raining in Winchcombe apparently), but we feel slightly cheated by not being rewarded for yesterday by having a following wind today.

On our way we are delayed by a coarse fisherman (a man who fishes for coarse fish, nor a rude angler) who wants John to photograph him with a carp he (the fisherman, not John) has just pulled out of the water. This was a bit of a whopper (the fish, not the story) and allegedly weighs 19lb 11 oz. John’s deed of mercy done, we carry on past another power station (Kingsnorth) and, John and Ben now beginning to feel the two days’ walking wearing on us, trudge along the Saxon Shore way to a pub that Mike knows (is there any other sort), the Ship at Lower Upnor. A reviving pint allows us to muster the energy to carry on, up the inevitable hill to Upper Upnor and a thriving industrial estate, past Strood station (previously mooted as a bail out or is it bale out) and across the Medway, reaching Rochester in time for John and Ben to catch the 3 05 and leaving Mike to take the St Pancras train in due course, with perhaps a beer at the Wetherspoons in prospect to ease his journey north.

Day 150 – Cliffe Pools to Grain: 15.7m: 5.4h

Gary drops a bombshell before the walk to say that he may be suffering from COVID, as Sally definitively is, and pulls out of the walk. After hasty discussion the rest of us decide to go ahead, even though this will leave Ben trying to get to Rochester on his own. John manages to make sure this is achieved without incident by diverting via Victoria, from which Ben’s train departs, leaving Mike to find his own way on the other line from St Pancras.

The meet up at around 10 am goes smoothly. Ben deposits his rucksack at the hotel (a mere stone’s throw for Rochester station), also containing a few possessions of John’s, leaving them both with a lighter pack. Mike eschews this concession to being a southern softy. Despite an accident causing local snarl-ups,the taxi deposits us in approximately the right position for our mile or so walk out to the end of last excursion’s walk at Cliffe Pools.

The walk is perfectly pleasant for the first, second, third and indeed fourth hours: the Thames away on our left, a slow and from time to time eastward meandering along the north edge of the Hoo peninsula. We meet no other walkers or indeed other human beings before finally we make it to Allhallows, which, despite the novelty of it being the first actual place we had reached all day, seems a comparatively uninteresting holiday park full of chalets and caravans, though we do spot a house or two of more permanent nature. We are beginning to get a bit tired as the wind has been directly from the east into our faces throughout, though it has been dry, mostly sunny, and a pleasant temperature for walking

After leaving Allhallows, we strike off toward the Isle of Grain, which is we believe accessible via a single bridge which, it being late in the day, we are relieved in the end to see. We are now only a mile or so from Grain itself, which we reach by soon after 4 and enter the Hogarth Inn (the finest on the Isle of Grain, we are told: there may not be substantial competition) for a reviving drink. The pub is doing a decent trade for that time in the afternoon, and indeed some of the customers appear to have been there since the advertised hot breakfast. We are told one or two tales of smuggling tunnels and the S.S. Richard Montgomery, a ship that has been marooned off the east coast of the island since 1944 and is full of enough unexploded munitions to flatten the island apparently (though it is in truth flat enough already). We are warned about the exorbitant cost of taking a cab back all the way to Rochester but nonetheless do so, reaching the hotel in time for John to struggle with the Wi-Fi connection for which he apparently paid £2.99. We venture into Rochester to eat and are rewarded for our initiative by a rather good fish restaurant, which does us proud and is doing a decent trade for a Monday (having said that, everywhere else appears to be shut). Returning to the hotel, John and Mike partake of a couple of stickies while Ben makes his excuses and leaves